The End Of The Road

I think I've discovered the worst thing in the world (warning: this is a massive over-exaggeration). You know that feeling when you're bored, trawling the Internet, and you reach a point - this sad, pathetic point - where Google is open, your fingers are on the keyboard ready to type and you genuinely can't think of anything to search for. You hit The End Of The Road, you are so bored that your mind is completely devoid of ideas.

That's sad, man. Sad.

To avoid this, one day when I was bored at work I set up a Google Reader account with the basic idea that I'd subscribe to a bunch of blogs and read them whenever I hit The End Of The Road.

Next step, find interesting blogs to read. That's harder. There are so many crap, self-serving, half-finished blogs out there (quick, avoid mirrors) that it's hard to find good ones.

I got on to this dude: The Art of Non-Conformity and, if nothing else, he's got me thinking.

There's three things I've taken from his blog:

1. Scoring heaps of Frequent Flyer points for free.
Hands down, this is a brilliant idea. The very basic premise (and it's worth reading his blog for more info) is to sign up to heaps of credit cards that give you xx thousand frequent flyer points simply for signing up. No money, no commitment, they just give you frequent flyer points. Do this enough times and you get free flights.

There are literally no catches to this. Sign up to credit card, get free points, cancel credit card. No cost, free points. It's ridiculous. I'm halfway to a flight to LA for a grand total of about three hours' effort, and now that I've got the hang of it I can do the whole credit card thing - from application to activation to cancelling - in about 15 minutes. So freaking easy.

2. Most blogs end up turning shit.
His blog was really interesting for ages when he was writing about these clever tricks and awesome travel he's doing and giving ideas for starting businesses etc, but, like most blogs (for some reason), it's gone towards motivational/self help crap. Inspirational quotes blah blah. I think people just run out of ideas.

3. He makes you think about ways to work independently.
Everyone dreams of quitting their job, he gives you the context to do it. This post is awesome. I came up with freelance writing and subbing, property writing, writing a guide for young people wanting to do a Canadian snow working holiday, and, awesomely, selling lemon butter at a market. Surely I'm good at something else..

Anyway, if nothing else, he's given me something to Google.